5 man Setup - Returning after several years away.

[Meeo]

Since we will still be rolling 5.4 for a bit til expansion, i'm curious to know peoples opinions on a pve setup i am looking into.

I possibly looking to roll the following:
Guardian Druid or Monk?
Warlock - Destruction
Hunter - Survival
Mage - Arcane (Edit: changed based on feedback)
Priest - Disc

I am very torn on the switching the paladin out for a druid instead, but i do not know enough about the current game to know which tank will fit me well. I will most likely level these up slowly and normally, without RAF (unless i start it next week after the new raf comes out).

My big question is does this group in the current environment provide enough dps/aoe dp, and is there any pros or cons against going druid over paladin. I will probably use the tank or the healer as my main for raiding eventually.

In my existing stockpile of classes i have i have my old classes for a year or so ago, at 85, Paladin, 3 Shamans, Priest, Druid, Warlock and an 80 Hunter. Would if be more wise to just stick with the existing group instead of going through the old content?

I know a lot of these questions are generally "play what you want" style of questions, but i really do not know what i want because i do not know the current game environment since i've been gone a long time.

Also i see a lot of people just rolling 3 members, is there a lot of content for 3 members, and is the gear comparable to what you could get as a 5 man team?

Thanks for the input and sorry for the long-windiness of the post.

[zenga]

The dungeons that shipped with MoP haven't been touched ever since, nor were any new dungeons introduced. People at the endgame now do 4-5 times the dps compared to those dungeons, if not more. Instead they have been focussing on making scenarios, which are basically short instances for 3 players (3 dps work, tank heal dps works etc). Then there are challenge modes, it's basically running a timed version of the 5man dungeons, where your gear is scaled down (so higher ilvl doesnt matter), and they are much harder than the heroic version, with lots of deadly mechanics. As far as I know very few boxers have taken those on. but I can confirm that they are all possible to complete on gold mode.

As for your group make up: having a druid in your team is nice because there is a spell called symbiosis, which basically gives the druid 1 ability of another class, and the other class an ability of the druid. A tank druid for instance gets life tap from a warlock (convert health into rage) and the warlock gets a HoT. There are some interesting combinations possible.

Apart from that, both prot paladins and tank druids are fairly easy to macro. One thing to consider is the armor type drops, and trying to limit the amount of waste.
Your group makeup looks solid, and personally I'd go for a druid just because you can have your group run as 5 dps if you go boomkin/spriest.
Survival, mage and destruction warlocks have among the best aoe in the game, though for a destro warlock some micromanagement is involved.
Single target they are all capable to pull high numbers, though your team will lack a lot of mobility with the destruction lock his long casts.
If you go with a destruction lock, I'd consider using an arcane mage over a fire one.
Disc is a solid healer and can contribute to your team dps at the same time with smite.

My personal favorite comp atm is:

Prot warrior
Ele shaman
Destro lock
Arcane mage
Restoration druid

Prot warrior have skull banner and all 3 dps classes benefit massively from it.

[rfarris]

I second the suggestion for an arcane mage instead of fire. Unless you're driving the mage, arcane is much easier to macro. Disc priests are awesome. Sometimes my disc priest tops the damage chart. The other thing you could consider would be a monk tank. They're pretty easy to play and they get an extra hour of bonus XP a day and free gear every few levels.

[Meeo]

I was looking into a monk tank as well, i but i hear they are killer for attention. A druid as a tank does sound appealing to me.

I also was considering the loot waste as well. I was pondering a Resto druid over the disc priest., that would alleviate some gear waste, but i guess the dpsing for healing appeals to me for some reason.

[Meeo]

I second the suggestion for an arcane mage instead of fire. Unless you're driving the mage, arcane is much easier to macro. Disc priests are awesome. Sometimes my disc priest tops the damage chart. The other thing you could consider would be a monk tank. They're pretty easy to play and they get an extra hour of bonus XP a day and free gear every few levels.

You posted as i was responding, i'm curious to know more about the monk tanks. At this point i believe i can drop the prot paladin and go Druid Tank, or Monk. I really know nothing of the monks though.

[rfarris]

One thing to remember about monks is that they don't have to be pandas! My monk is a female draenei. I have a single castsequence macro that's served me with fairly simple updates all the way from level 20 - 88. I drive the tank, so I can use crackling jade or the hokey charge that monks have for pulling. Other than that it's pretty much 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 as I spam my pull and dps-rotation mouse buttons for the ISBoxer Pro-system setup.

[Mamut]

Monk vs Druid

I really enjoy both of the leather wearing tanks, more than my plate tanks(i have leveled and played them all lol). The monk i enjoy more for speed runs with my friends with the roll/tiger's lust and killer AoE they do.

The druid i like more while boxing due to the higher stam and self healing. The monk can heal pretty decent too but while boxing i don't like having to worry about picking up GotO orbs (little healing spheres created while hitting mobs).

The monk also took creative macroing to get the priority where i liked it while the druid was more simple to get setup. With monk you have to get shuffle going asap or you can be quite squishy on the pulls while druid you can soak the dmg a little better till you start getting savage defense going (or frenzied regeneration if you need the health vs casters)

Last thing to note is the group buffs. Both give 5% stats, the monk offers the statue that places absorbs on your team helping out with healing. The druid offers 5% crit all the time. Not sure what would be more valuable to you but i think mages also offer crit buff possibly as well as hunters pets being able to fill in many buffs.

My favorite team for 5 mans was Druid tank,Arms/Fury warrior, frost DK, Enh Shaman, MW Monk. The all melee all star team lol.

Good Luck with your new team!

[Meeo]

The buff Druids given is definitely a benefit over the monk's buff.

[Meeo]

I started the Monk, Lock, Mage, Hunter, and Priest team. Since RAF came back last night i decided to RAF it since i had a stockpile of some 15+ battlechest keys i must of accumulated over the years of playing and the 5$ deals.

The team is almost level 20, after getting back into the swing of thing i realize i still got a lot of work to get the UI and keybindings back to what i use to have setup for comfort and memory.

Kind of feels good to be back in the game with all the multiboxing support that has gone into it over the years. Im debating going back to CLS setup, not sure if its been updated or not for 5.4 or if i should do my own key maps.

I still want to try a druid out as tank or healer, i may make a second team, or i make just factio/race xfer my 88 druid over when my new toons get that high.

[rfarris]

Nah. Do Pro setup. It's replaced the CLS.